Janis Carr of the Orange County Register: “Who said this? ‘We aren’t doing a very good job of sharing the ball.’ No, it wasn’t Pau Gasol, whose irritation of not getting the ball inside has been bubbling at the surface the past few games. No, not Jordan Farmar, who loves to get his hands on the ball. Not Sasha Vujacic, who hasn’t met a ball he doesn’t like to shoot. If you guessed Kobe Bryant, you are correct. Seriously, though, does the man listen to himself? Heading into Tuesday’s loss to Charlotte, Bryant hit 52 of 139 shots — 37.4 percent — from the floor. Against the Bobcats, he took 28 shots — 11 more than anyone else.” Forum Blue & Gold breaks down Kobe’s recent shooting slump here. Bryant shot a season-low 43.2 percent during the month of March. But that’s only .008 percent lower than Bryant shot in March of 2008 before rebounding to shoot 46.2 percent during April and 47.9 percent during the playoffs. That said, Bryant’s jumper seems a little flat lately and he could definitely stand to distribute more when his shot isn’t falling.

John Schuhmann of NBA.com: “There are two key problems with the Suns’ defense: personnel and apathy. First, the Suns are simply a collection of poor defenders. Almost every NBA team, when devising their offensive game plan, looks to take advantage of their opponent’s defensive liabilities. When facing the Suns, foes have multiple choices. You can beat Steve Nash off the dribble, you can get an open jumper when O’Neal doesn’t come out on a high screen-and-roll, or you can just pass the ball around a few times and the defense will eventually break down. The Suns have tried playing zone recently, but a zone can only hide one or two bad defenders, not four or five. The Suns’ defense really started to go downhill when Kerr traded his best defender, Shawn Marion, to Miami in order to acquire Shaq last February.”

Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle on the rise of technology in the NBA: “It’s great. If you came up in this league in the 80’s like I did as player, and I got into coaching in 1989-90, we were working with VCR to VCR editing at that time and then they came up with editing machines. Now there’s digital stuff that allows you to do everything in real time. When the games are over, you’ve got an offense [DVD], a defense [DVD]. Everyone is able to do things faster and more effectively. It’s one of the reasons our league is a great league.” Nothing groundbreaking here, but I love learning about this kind of stuff. For instance, did you know that Magic GM Otis Smith believes face-to-face interviews are the most important aspect of evaluating players at predraft camps? “For me the interview is the most important thing,” Smith told Kyle Hightower of the Orlando Sentinel. “I put more weight on when I sit down and talk to you than I do on if you can make a jumper. But that’s part of the things we do different here. We don’t trot in 30 guys for individual workouts. It’s why we have a staff.” Smith is one of the leading candidates for Executive of the Year.

Trevor Smith of Hoops Addict: “Love presently has a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 18.56, which places him an incredible 49th in league overall. For perspective, this rate values him ahead of David West. In February, West was an All-Star for the second time. Love was not even invited to the Rookie-Sophomore game. While the Timberwolves’ big man places second among rookies in PER, he is first among those playing more than 20 minute a night. Further proof of his alarming productivity is evidenced by his Rebounding Rate. This measure tracks the percentage of missed shots a player rebounds while on the court. Love’s rate of 20.8 not only places him head-and-shoulders above his fellow rookies, but it sees him rank fifth in the entire league. For a young player to be such an effective and consistent rebounder is impressive. For a player that almost every pro scout thought lacked the leaping ability, endurance, and general athleticism to make in the league at all is phenomenal.”

Brian Kamenetzky of the Los Angeles Times: “After a promising start to the road trip for Jordan Farmar has regressed, with Tuesday night’s performance basically wiping away the good will he’d started to build back up. And while both Phil Jackson and Sasha Vujacic will tell you that 18 is on the floor to do more than simply hit shots, a bucket here and there would still be nice. Over the first six games of the roadie, Sasha has a grand total of six field goals. On 27 tries. That’s not good (22.2%). Josh Powell shot 42% in March, and finished 7 for his last 26. As it’s been for a while, the Lakers can’t generate any offense once the starters are off the floor.”